For years, not only has violence and devastation persisted on the island, but corruption and abuse of power have also reached very high levels, affecting the organizations committed to bringing aid to the exhausted population.
“We had hoped that the situation would improve, but on the contrary, after a break at Christmas, everything exploded again,” Fr. Antonio Menegòn, Camillian missionary (MI), told Agenzia Fides.
The priest is referring to the recent kidnapping of Claretian missionary, Fr. Antoine Macaire Christian Noah, who on February 7 was traveling to his community in Kazal, when he was kidnapped by a gang of criminals who then demanded a ransom from the local Church.
“Among the latest episodes reported by our Camillian confreres in Haiti,” continues Fr. Menegòn, “there was a violent attack last week against an institute of Brazilian sisters in Port au Prince. The bandits took everything and used violence against the sisters.”
“Lately,” continues the priest, “to be able to transport one of our aid trucks from Port-au-Prince to Jérémie, an isolated town already devastated by the earthquake of August 14, 2021, where the population really has nothing, we had to pay the various criminal gangs for each journey we made to reach our destination.”
Fr. Massimo Miraglio, the only Italian Camillian present in Haiti, periodically visits these mountainous areas. He tries to offer the population a minimum of assistance. He is a priest, he builds a school, he wants to build a clinic and a small chapel.
He and his group travel hours of rough roads to transport school desks and other basic necessities on the back of mules to the most isolated areas in the Jérémie mountains.
“Last year,” recalls Fr. Menegòn, “our confreres in Jérémie found totally isolated, destroyed villages, so they organized field dispensaries and mobile clinics in this very remote and difficult to reach region.”
